Volume 533 Issue 7604, 26 May 2016

Geneticists and historians need to work together on using DNA to explore the past.

Overtime pay for postdoctoral scientists is welcome — but could mean fewer positions.

Pressure from the public could force firms to develop new drugs that treat resistant infections, says Carlos Amábile-Cuevas.

A science writer challenges the sceptics community to move beyond tackling just ‘easy’ issues.

Pandemic war chest unveiled for developing countries; India launches space shuttle; and US National Football League criticized over health-funding pressure.

Technique to stop children inheriting mitochondrial diseases has potential to backfire.

Space agencies envisage system of probes to track whether countries are achieving emissions goals.

Two blueprints emerge from centre tasked with creating a practical quantum device.

Complaint to US government alleges that diagnostics company violated individuals' right to access health information.

Labour law will change how many postdocs — long a troubled segment of the US research hierarchy — are paid.

Biotech firm seeks government approval to market mosquitoes as a pesticide to prevent spread of Zika and dengue viruses.

Survey sheds light on the ‘crisis’ rocking research.

By scouring the remains of early loos and sewers, archaeologists are finding clues to what life was like in the Roman world and in other civilizations.

New guidelines for the surgical treatment of type 2 diabetes bolster hopes of finding a cure, writes Francesco Rubino, but long-standing preconceptions must be put aside.

Spencer Klein calls for bigger telescope arrays to catch particles from the most energetic places in the Universe.

Andrew Robinson tours an enthralling exhibition of finds from two ancient cities, long sunk in the Nile delta.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.

Tilli Tansey engages with the medical autobiography of a pioneer in the field of HIV/AIDS.

Discoverer of new forms of carbon.

Both nuclear genes and genes in organelles called mitochondria are involved in the assembly of the cellular energy-producing machinery. RNA-translation programs that coordinate the two systems have now been identified. See Article p.499

Supermassive black holes are thought to keep star formation under control by ejecting or stirring gas in galaxies. Observations of an old galaxy reveal a potential mechanism for how this process occurs. See Letter p.504

Caspase enzymes promote cell death, but are also involved in sperm development in fruit flies. The discovery that, in sperm, caspase activation is restricted to the surface of organelles called mitochondria sheds light on this unusual role.

The way in which ketamine exerts its antidepressant effects has been perplexing. Evidence that a metabolite of the drug is responsible, and acts on a different target from ketamine, might be the key to an answer. See Article p.481

Three studies find that a family of organic compounds affects the formation and initial growth of atmospheric aerosol particles in clean air — with implications for our knowledge of the climate effects of aerosols. See Letters p.521 & 527

The metabolism of ketamine to (2S,6S;2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine (HNK) is essential for its antidepressant effects, and the (2R,6R)-HNK enantiomer lacks ketamine-related side effects but exerts rapid and sustained antidepressant actions in mice; these antidepressant effects are independent of NMDAR inhibition but require AMPAR activity.

Successful identification of mouse embryonic pre-haematopoietic stem cells at single-cell resolution.

A heterotypic cell interaction between astrocytes and tumour cells colonizing the brain is discovered; by establishing gap junctions, tumour cells trigger the activation of innate immune response signalling in astrocytes, which results in the secretion of factors that support growth and chemoresistance in brain metastatic cells.

The genes encoding the subunits of oxidative phosphorylation complexes are split between the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, but their translation is synchronized by signalling from the cytosol to the mitochondria.

In order for quiescent galaxies to maintain their low-to-non-existent star formation, there must be a mechanism to remove or heat gas that would otherwise cool to form stars; now supermassive black hole winds that are sufficient to suppress star formation in such galaxies are reported.

Transit timing variations of the four-planet system Kepler-223 are used to compute the long-term stability of the system, which has a chain of resonances; the results suggest that inward planetary migration, rather than in situ assembly, is responsible for the formation of some close-in sub-Neptune systems.

Coupling a ferromagnetic insulator to a topological insulator induces a robust magnetic state at the interface, resulting from the large spin-orbit interaction and the spin-momentum locking property of Dirac fermions, and leads to an extraordinary enhancement of the magnetic ordering (Curie) temperature.

Combining cavity-enhanced direct frequency comb spectroscopy with buffer gas cooling enables rapid collection of well-resolved infrared spectra for molecules such as nitromethane, naphthalene and adamantane, confirming the value of the combined approach for studying much larger and more complex molecules than have been probed so far.

Aerosol particles can form in the atmosphere by nucleation of highly oxidized biogenic vapours in the absence of sulfuric acid, with ions from Galactic cosmic rays increasing the nucleation rate by one to two orders of magnitude compared with neutral nucleation.

The growth of nucleated organic particles has been investigated in controlled laboratory experiments under atmospheric conditions; initial growth is driven by organic vapours of extremely low volatility, and accelerated by more abundant vapours of slightly higher volatility, leading to markedly different modelled concentrations of atmospheric cloud condensation nuclei when this growth mechanism is taken into account.

In wild Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta), subordinates of both sexes respond to experimentally induced increases in the growth of same-sex rivals by raising their own growth rate and food intake.

The ‘big-sperm paradox’, the observed production of few, gigantic sperm by some fruit flies (seemingly at odds with fundamental theory addressing how sexual selection works) is shown to be a result of co-evolution driven by genetic and functional relationships between sperm length, design of the female reproductive tract and features of the mating system.

A genome-wide association study in 293,723 individuals identifies 74 genetic variants associated with educational attainment, which, although only explaining a small proportion of the variation in educational attainment, highlights candidate genes and pathways for further study.

A novel approach is used to cultivate a substantial proportion of the human gut microbiota, representing an important step forward in characterizing the role of these bacteria in health and disease.

The prostate cancer drug abiraterone can be metabolized into several substances with different effects, and optimization of this process could be helpful for fine-tuning the treatment of prostate cancer.

Interferon-γ-secreting CD4⁺ helper T cells are required for antibody access to neuronal tissues in response to neurotropic virus infections.

The crystal structure of the MraY enzyme from Aquifex aeolicus in complex with the naturally occurring nucleoside inhibitor muraymycin D2 (MD2) reveals that MraY undergoes a large conformational rearrangement near the active site after the binding of MD2, leading to the generation of a nucleoside-binding pocket and a peptide-binding site.

The X-ray structure of human ABCG5/ABCG8 heterodimer in a nucleotide-free state, being the first atomic model of an ABC sterol transporter.

A suite of tools now enables scientists to see proteins at work in living cells at the single-molecule level.

An MBA can unlock progress to the higher ranks of a company — and many firms are willing to pay for one.

Two studies examine how PhD graduates plan for and move on their career paths.

Security issues.